Longing for Lakewood

A guest post from a secret believer

I received this moving essay from one of our readers this afternoon, “Trappedinthevoid”. He is clearly going through a very difficult time, and I hope that publishing his thoughts will give a measure of serenity to his soul.

I sit at my desk, Princeton’s iconic Gothic spires casting elongated shadows across the campus, and stare blankly at the clutter of books and papers. Anthropology is my life’s work. My father was a historian, my mother a philosopher, and I was raised in the warm, relentless glow of intellectual inquiry. God was a myth we dissected, an anthropological curiosity. Faith was for others—the distant, the unlearned.

But here I am, pen trembling in my hand, my mind and soul ablaze with doubts of a different kind. No, not doubts about God’s existence, but doubts about how to live this strange, bifurcated life I’ve stumbled into. For months now, I’ve been sneaking moments to read the Torah and pouring over commentaries from Rashi, Ramban, and the sages. I feel like a spy in my own home, hiding sacred texts under academic journals.

My wife—a brilliant computer scientist whose algorithms are reshaping our understanding of artificial intelligence—would scoff if she knew. We share a life founded on shared principles of rationalism and atheism. Our dinners echo with laughter over the folly of belief, the stubborn persistence of religion in a world that should have outgrown it. My colleagues at the department are no different—secular to the core, champions of human reason.

And yet, here I am.

The first stirrings came unexpectedly, triggered by a student’s question about ancient Jewish practices. In explaining them, I found myself intrigued—not with the sociological implications, but with the profound resonance of the laws themselves. What began as professional curiosity evolved into something I can only describe as a longing.

A longing for Lakewood.

I’ve visited Lakewood only once, on an impulse, driving through its quiet streets. The sight of men wrapped in tallit, children walking hand-in-hand with their parents, and the palpable sense of purpose left me awestruck. This, I thought, is a community that believes in something bigger than itself.

I want that.

But how can I reconcile this yearning with the life I’ve built? My wife would never understand. To her, faith is an anachronism, a crutch for those unwilling to confront life’s harsh truths. My colleagues would see my beliefs as a betrayal of the very discipline I teach—a descent into the primitive, the irrational.

And then there is my own fear. What would it mean to leave this life? To abandon the ivory tower for the Beit Midrash? To trade my reputation for ridicule, my home for one filled with mezuzot and the aroma of Shabbat challah?

Most of all, what would it mean for my family? I love my wife deeply. She is my partner, my intellectual equal, the mother of our children. But can love withstand such a fundamental divergence in belief? Can a marriage built on shared atheism survive when one partner finds God?

I feel trapped, torn between two worlds—Princeton and Lakewood, reason and revelation, my past and my future. The Torah speaks of a man being drawn to truth as iron to a magnet. I feel that pull, but my feet are stuck in the mire of my own making.

And so, I linger in this liminal space, yearning for a life I cannot yet claim, while dutifully living the life I have built. My students come and go, my lectures continue, and the campus bustles around me. But inside, a quiet revolution is underway—a revolution of faith, of identity, of longing.

I don’t know where this journey will take me. Perhaps I will find the courage to break free, or perhaps I will remain here, a secret believer in a world that values only the seen and the measurable. But for now, I hold on to the words of the Shema, whispered in the stillness of my study: “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is One.”

And I hope.